Sunday, August 16, 2015

To set the stage, for the whole week leading up to my trip, I was
itching to finish everything and go visit Opera. I had all kinds of plans for
the weekend. Grand plans.

Friday night we had a double date with her friend (her plan not mine),
Saturday we were going to belatedly celebrate her birthday so I had made
reservations at this fancy restaurant she said had always wanted to go to.
After that, I had a surprise something-something planned.

As you may remember in my older post, the first night we saw each
other after an almost 2 year absence, we went to a church dance. The dance
itself was sucky, even if it was still an enjoyable evening together. Opera had
said that she wished we could have a “Do-over” dance with good music where we
could just dance with each other.

So I had painstakingly made a curated playlist of her favorite
songs and songs that had significance for us. And I had called and emailed all
kinds of people all over her hometown to get access to a church (the venue of
all church dances) and help set it with lights/decorations/etc for this “dance”
(btw I hate asking people for favors so it was torture, BUT I DID IT ANYWAY GOSH
DANG IT!) Anyways after dinner we would go to the pre-arranged church and fulfill
her wish. And it was all a surprise.

Awesome plan right? Adorable plan right? I thought so.

So things go according to plans at first, I get to her hometown
and do my last second preparations for our dance thing while she is finishing
work. We go on our double date and it was fun. Plus the guy who was her friend’s date was so
weird and awkward that it made me feel all confident and smooth by comparison.

Then we go back to her place where I am hoping to finally have
some one-on-one time with her. But unfortunately there are a ton of loud boisterous
people at her house speaking Spanish (I’m more of a Portuguese type of guy),
doing magic tricks, and just generally killing my vibe. At like midnight, she finally suggests we just take off and we end
up driving up to a parking lot up on the hill overlooking the city. Think prime
make out real estate.

We idly talk for a little bit and just when I’m about to start
making things happen, she asks me “Why are we dating?”

Now that is an ominous question, but I was oblivious and totally
still planning on kissing her face after I answered it. Anyways, I say “because
I like you and want to date you and I am guessing you feel similar?......”. But instead
of confirming, she stares out the window and says nothing for a while.

And riiiiiiight about there, I FINALLY realized that a sneak attack smack down was in store for me.

So that happened.

After like an hour of each of us talking in spurts, I just wanted
to get the out of there. I felt like a caged animal in her car. But unfortunately
there was just a slight problem, one hour earlier, the guy I was staying with
had texted me saying not to come back or interrupt for the next few hours
because he was having “private time” with his girlfriend haha. I of course had
responded to him, “Don’t worry I’ll be out late having private time of my own.”
Haha I am such an idiot.

Anyways, I eventually convince Opera to just drop me off at the
guy’s place. Where I dutifully sat outside for over an hour waiting for the guy
to finish making out (no sense in ruining both of our nights) on the couch I
was to sleep on that night haha (its all so funny in hindsight). That same night I purchased the first plane ticket home for
the next morning, canceled all the stupid (yet adorable) plans I had made, and flew back home.
Within 24 hours, I was back to where I started.

So what happened?

I don’t really know. Does anyone really know why someone breaks up
with them or why their relationship reached that point?

Oh sure, the person breaking up with you might give you reasons.
Sometimes they might even believe those reasons. It might be 100% clear to them, or maybe they don’t really
understand it themselves. Maybe they will come up with reasons that assuage
their own feelings. Maybe reasons that assuage your feelings.

Of course, as the person being broken up with, you will think of
your own reasons, no matter what the other person tells you. Likely alternating
between blaming yourself, the other person, and the other person’s stupid cat
who you never got along with (ITS ALL YOUR FAULT MR. MITTENS!).

So I have all kinds of explanations furnished by her and me, but again, I honestly don’t know.

Two things I do know and one thing I suspect: I do know this whole situation sucks. I do know that have no ill feelings toward Opera. And finally I
suspect and hope that this is all for the better (even if in the moment it
still sucks and I don’t understand it).

Sunday, August 2, 2015

So I came up with a plan. Every other week I fly to Opera or fly her to me (luckily I’m not poor, which is nice). That way we would see each other relatively
often and hopefully ease the pain of long distance as much as possible.

We’ve been doing that and I think it’s working. So far I’ve
just been flying back and forth every other weekend, although I bought a ticket
for her to come visit me in a few weeks. This plan has definitely made my
weekends pretty crazy, which has cut into my blogging time. Sorry.

But not sorry, because it has been awesome to hang out with
Opera on the weekends and finally be in a relationship again. I think I have
thoroughly won over her whole family: her parents, her siblings, her sibling’s
spouses, her nieces and nephews, her crazy uncle (we all have one), her cat
(even though I’m allergic and secretly hate Mr. Mittens and hope he chokes on a
hairball and dies).

You should all try relationships, they are awesome and I
highly recommend it. Or at least the first few months seem to be pretty good haha. And
if the blog suffers a little bit, so be it. I am plotting ways for this long
distance relationship to just become a normal distance relationship, but that
is still months away. Until then I’m content with the current setup.

Recently, I was talking with my colleague about it and she posited that it
is a lot harder for non-mormons like herself to have long distance relationships
because non-mormons actually sleep together while I’m not having sex with
Opera. To which I responded, "yeah, well at least you sometimes get to do it."

Okay, it wasn't really a burn. But I just felt like this post could use a gif. Sue me.